OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: AI Agents Are Like Junior Employees
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that companies are using AI agents (programs that run autonomously to perform complex tasks) as if they were junior employees.
"You hear people that talk about their job now is to assign work to a bunch of [AI] agents, look at the quality, figure out how it fits together, give feedback," Altman said on Monday during the keynote conversation at the Snowflake Summit 2025, per Business Insider. "It sounds a lot like how they work with a team of still relatively junior employees."
Related: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Isn't Worried About AI Taking Over Jobs — Here's Why
Meanwhile, a report last month from venture capital firm SignalFire found that AI has already led to a 25% decrease in entry-level hires from 2023 to 2024 at Meta, Microsoft, and Google. SignalFire's head of research, Asher Bantock, told TechCrunch that AI was to blame for the decline in entry-level tech roles, as it takes over more routine tasks typically carried out by junior employees.
At consulting firm McKinsey, AI is performing tasks usually reserved for junior employees, like creating PowerPoint presentations and drafting proposals. McKinsey wrote in July 2024 that AI could replace up to 375 million jobs by 2030.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo byOther industry leaders have bold predictions about how quickly AI will take over entry-level jobs. Dario Amodei, 42, the CEO of the $61.5 billion company Anthropic, told Axios last week that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within the next one to five years, causing unemployment to rise as high as 20%.
"It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it," Amodei told Axios.
Related: 'I Do Have a Fair Amount of Concern.' The CEO of $61 Billion Anthropic Says AI Will Take Over a Crucial Part of Software Engineers' Jobs Within a Year
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